TRAÇ. Drawing talks

Programm curated by Oscar Guayabero showing the capabilities of drawing as a tool for knowledge, as a means of communication, as a vehicle for pprojection, as a way to make ideas, and even dreams, into a reality, placing the focus on the potential of drawing as a mechanism for the creation of knowledge.

Aplicació Legal Desplaçada #3: F.I.E.S.

23.02.2012 - 19.05.2012

A project by Núria Güell for Aparadors i Pantalles.Access to Arxiu Aplicació Legal Desplaçada #3: F.I.E.S.http://acvic.org/fies

I issued an open call to prisoners subjected to the F.I.E.S. regime* (Inmates under Special Observation), inviting them to write a poem, a short story or to make a drawing as a complaint regarding the institutional torture to which they are being subjected.

Every day I send these poems to the politician responsible for legalising the F.I.E.S. once again, after the Supreme Court had declared this regulation null and void. I obtained his address by contracting a private investigator who specialises in tracing files to obtain personal information.

In parallel, I delivered some customised packages with samples of materials received to journalists contributing to the justice section of the official media and to the public ombudsman, inviting them to a press conference in which, with the collaboration of a former F.I.E.S. inmate and a lawyer, we provide them with more information.

Both the deliveries of materials and the press conference have been recorded, making evident which media have decided not to disclose the information.Each step of this action is based on white torture methods applied to prisoners subjected to the F.I.E.S.

* In 1991, our society of democracy and rights, added the FIES regime (Fitxers d'Interns d'Especial Seguiment - Inmates under Special Observation)to our prison system. This makes use of measures of recruitment and isolation to force misfit prisoners into submission. These measures are not regulated by the Supreme Court, and are unconstitutional because prisoners' rights under the provisions of the Spanish Constitution were ignored, as well as the Penitentiary Regulations or the Penal Code, condemning inmates to vulnerability and helplessness, since the abuser himself must deliver any complaint regarding his own behaviour towards the prisoners.

Scrap Collectors

Scrap Collector, an emerging figure in Barcelona's public space. Due to the current crisis, scrap collectors live in extreme poverty and insecurity. Most are young illegal migrants, wandering the city streets, browsing for debris. Previously, many of them were construction workers, but now, due to the crisis, this is their only means of subsistence.

The project consisted of following in their steps during several days, documenting the routes they trace in the urban context. The data collected are represented by computer graphics in the window and on a map / website where you can access the collected audiovisual documentation.

In association with:

APROPEM-NOS. A network of people, organisations and services working for coexistence and mutual understanding among residents of different geographical and cultural origins.Hangar. Centre de producció i recerca d’arts visualsDauda and Pape

VIC ORANGE - VIC CRYSTAL

A project of Pere Ginard, with the collaboration of Laura Ginès and Jaume Ortolà

15.10.2011-15.12.2011

Combined intervention in ACVic's front window and on the web. A project about identity, representation and bureaucracy, using drawings and a direct connection to the local context. Every one of the drawings both at the front window and on the website shows an avatar with neither identity nor life, but ready to achieve these through the mediation of those who wish to participate in the game. Adopting or giving life to an avatar may be accomplished by giving it a name, an age, an occupation and a place of birth at the website http://acvic.org/vicnaranja or directly in ACVic's frontspace, where all the avatars may be found, ready for adoption or registration.Everything here is a metaphor. And also a game.

And the game is that now we are technocrats of the system, offering new identities and, therefore, new opportunities to whomever we please.We will select some of the individuals represented at the exhibition for registration, providing name, surname, age, place of birth and occupation. The registered Individuals will be considered as grateful citizens of a New Vic (Vic Naranja - Vic Cristal) [Orange Vic Clear Vic] while the others remain suspicious of everything.We will test a new model of social order, a brave new world, a low intensity Second Life, linked to a certain place called Vic and also, in a visionary association, to a certain brand of office pens.

(*) [Translator note: Two problems here. The first is the central pun of the piece, Orange Bic/Vic, Clear Bic/Vic, depending on an old Spanish advertisement for Bic office pens which never played in the UK, a completely untranslatable pop-cultural reference. (Although orange and clear Bic pens are sold in the UK, so this is not the problem.) The second is, of course, that there is absolutely no ambiguity in English phonemics between "B" and "V" sounds; "B" is always "B", and "V" is always "V" -- there is no room for confusion, because there is NEVER any confusion between them. The two are not considered as allophonic, but as two distinct and separate sounds which are never confused with each other.]

WORDS KILL: OPERATION WINDOWS

This is the first project showcased in the programme Sreens and Windows, selected from the open call. Words Kill: Operation Windows consists of an intervention in the glass frontage of ACVIC, connecting a physical intervention to a virtual intervention live on the web. The physical part is a skin overlapping the glass, showing a set of geometrical shapes simulating the panels which, in traditional Arabic architecture, stand as a filter between the street and the window that gives access to the interior of a house. This wooden panel, named Mashrabiya, in this case acts as a filter, but is also a QR code which can be interpreted using smartphones. Each of the five codes gives access to one of five videos which, in a language between irony and fiction, tells of the harsh reality of immigration from different Arab countries to European countries.

A project by Vartan Avakian, Raffy and Doulian and Maral Mikirditsian, with the collaboration of Raed Yassin (videos).

[SW] DATA AND TERRITORIES. SELECTED PROJECTS

SCREENS AND WINDOWSSW is a project that is part of ACVic's Expo Program. It aims at displaying new proposals that use the center's glass façade and at the same time develop an internet version of the project. The current open call for projects, focusing on DATA AND TERRITORIES, received 78 proposals from 39 cities. Data as raw units of meaning that need to be contextualized in a specific territory. The projects, of open subject matter and referring to any context, meet the prerequisite of addressing theconceptual relationship between the suggested subjects: data and territories - analog and digital - physical space and virtual space - texts and hypertexts - stops & motions - curtains and banners - visualisation of data and texts in context - maps and cartographies - data and analogies - narrations and dates - information and counterinformation - graphs and cities. Four projects have been selected to be presented within the 2011 program of the center.

The selection committee, formed by Ignasi Aballí (artist), Tere Badia (director of Hangar), Mery Cuesta (independent curator), Núria Enguita (independent curator) and Ramon Parramon director of ACVic), has selected the next four projects that participates in Screens and Windows 2011 open call:

- ‘VIC NARANJA, VIC CRISTAL’ by Pere Ginard, a project about identity, representation and bureaucracy, through drawing and direct connection with the local context.- ‘ARTÍCULO 10 DE LA CONSTITUCIÓN ESPAÑOLA’ by Núria Güell, a project that gives voice to a collective with no visibility such as prisoners through poetic texts and active involvement of this collective. - ‘WORDS KILL II: Operation Windows’ by Vartan Avakian, Raffy Doulian, Maral Mikirditsian and Raed Yassin, a project that proposes a parallel reading of QR codes and elements of Islamic architecture, both as elements with mediating qualities. - ‘RE_COLLECTOR’, by Collectivey¹m [Lester Barreto, Enric Carreras, Pedro Coelho and Pedro Dias], a project of mapping of territories and non-desired objects as traces of the individual’s presence in the city.

These projects have been selected for their accordance with the framework proposed by the open call organized by ACVIC, for their conceptual interest, as well as the favorable interaction between digital and physical spheres they provide.

Screens and Windows program [SW]. Call for projects

DATA AND TERRITORIES. Call for projects for the program Screens and Windows02.12.2010-13.02.2011

Screens and Windows, as part of ACVic's exhibitions programme and through an open call and invitations, aims to display new proposals making use of part of the Centre's glass frontage as well as a version for the internet . Participating projects will be displayed at acvic.org. The formal realisation of these proposals must take into account each of the two spaces, virtual and physical. The projects for Screens and Windows should have an open theme, although they must also address conceptual relationships beween subjects such as those in the following suggestions: data and territories - analog and digital - physical space and virtual space - texts and hypertexts - stops & motions - curtains and banners - visualisation of data and texts in context - maps and cartographies - data and analogies - narrations and dates - information and counterinformation - graphs and cities, to be exhibited in the glass frontage and in the web site space through the screen. To participate please fill out and submit the form [Acces to the form] In the second phase participating projects may be invited to intervene in selected shop windows in Vic or other cities.

Transparency by Ignasi Aballí for the program Screens and Windows

TRANSPARENCYIGNASI ABALLÍ02.12.2010-06.03.2011

With this new exhibition programme Screens and Windows, ACVic proposes to use the glass front of its building to install different projects. Suggesting subjects such as data and territories, physical space-virtual space, texts and hypertexts, maps and cartographies or information and counter-information, among other things, ACVic aims to reflect, through the deployed projects, on questions related to public space in its extended meaning, conceptually as well as physically. The Transparency intervention on the glass wall of ACVic's frontage reflects upon the physical characteristics of the building and of its structural support. In this first intervention the Centre itself is the starting point for a reflection which, in further projects, will be broadened out to other areas and territories. One of the main characteristics of the big glass wall of ACVic's main frontage is the transparency; which makes possible the connection of the inside and the outside of the space.